Be aware of what you see, what you hear, and what you do.
Let’s go back a few steps… why do we have fear? Our brains are programmed from many many many years ago to be very attuned to any threats to our survival. Let’s face it once upon a time we were cavemen, who actually had a fair few threats to our life on a daily basis! Unfortunately this attuned sensitivity to our welfare is not the most helpful in this day and age. As humans of the new era if you like 😉 we constantly want to better ourselves, we look to thrive with our riding, but also our work, our relationships. We often fail to live the simple life. This means added stressors. We try to fit a lot in the week, in the day to say the least. The issue is the part of our brain which deals with threats, our sub-conscious doesn’t distinguish between real life threats, and other negative events or stressors… This means that if we ‘perceive ‘ an event as scary, stressful or negative… we will react to it in the exact same way we would a life threatening event! With real fear!
We were all born with two fears, the fear of falling and the fear loud noises. So hang on where do the rest come from? You learn it! As humans we are learning all the time, whether conscious of it or not… through what we hear, what we see and what we do.
So if I could give you one bit of advice to implement today. BE AWARE.
Next time somebody comes in from a ride and they haven’t had a particular great time, they might start telling you all about how they flew in the air and … you get the point i’m sure… and they are very un-likely to be even saying this to be purposefully negative, but I promise you, you now have a very lovely mental image of been flown through the air! I say this with some degree of caution as my explanation could indeed be doing just that! How often do you explain what has happened to yourself and exaggerate it to make light of the situation ?
Or maybe you talk yourself down the other way? It is paramount to pay attention to your self too! We hear it! So if you actually rode an awesome round! Do you take that? Or do you instead attribute an un logical amount of that brilliant time to outside influences? For example the horse, an awesome coach or maybe you blame sheer lady luck! Try taking a bit of the credit next time, see how that feels. 🙂
You are constantly influenced by the world around you…. when I worked in racing it was laughed upon when you fell off…quite frankly all that you hurt was your pride… I can tell you I fell off way more often and was way less worried! Why? I didn’t perceive the fall as a threat… because what I saw, what I heard, and how i acted (what i did) did not back up to my subconscious that it was a treat.
The image below is of an exercise we often do at our confidence camps. Falling practice! Yep you heard me right. We have a laugh. We feel a bit silly. And we remember that falling is not actually that bad! I am not saying that we all want to fall off, absolutely not and we always make sure we follow the correct bitesize training steps so safety is a first priority BUT once we have put those steps in place we need to be able to ride carefree! And making sure we maintain a correct perspective of the danger, not a warped one is paramount to allowing this. Some people might stop me at this point and say yes but I don’t actually want to fall, it could hurt. Let me ask you how many times you have ridden in your whole life? And how many times did you actually hurt yourself to a serious amount? I mean you don’t want to crash your car right, but we still do it without it making us feel sick and wobbly! So what’s that all about? Society deems driving as a fairly essential thing. We don’t attach a level of guilt to having a car crash for example. An emotion many of my clients tell me they feel if they were to have a riding fall. So there is a perfect example of what you see, hear, and do changing the way you PERCEIVED the danger. And there lies the key! PERCEIVED fear, riding is not real life threatening fear! That would be running into a burning building or such like!
Ok i’ve convinced you… riding is a good thing, you know deep down that you CAN do it. But you still feel wobbly. That’s OK this blog is not the full works. This is just a little insight into raising your awareness so you can go about protecting your confidence. Here’s a couple of summary tips to get your journey started today…
- Next time someone asks you how your horse went today / you arrive a clinic and have to describe yourself / someone says I love your horse he’s so sweet…. try describing yourself as follows … he went great thanks / this is Bertie and I am Cassandra and we are here to have fun! / He is, I love him too…. that is much healthier for your perception of yourself as a rider than, yeh it was OK mum just needs to get a grip he could jump much higher with someone else / hi yeh I am Cassandra and this is Bertie and Im the problem I am just so unconfident / ha ha you should have seen the massive buck he did in the field today! Butter wouldn’t melt!
2. If someone or yourself takes a fall be aware of the meaning you place on that event. If your mind is escalating into Oh MY GOSH I COULD HAVE BROKEN A BONE… remind yourself you could have yes, but you could also break a bone by slipping on the ice and you still walk your dog?
3. If someone says something to you that makes you doubt yourself as a rider or horse owner be sure to stop that doubt in it’s track – check the perspective .
To sum up!
Your subconscious mind reacts the same to real fear and perceived fear. So BE AWARE of how what you see, hear and do affects the meaning you place on certain events.
HINT HINT… keep telling yourself you are a nervous nelly, and you WILL believe that, and then when you need to support your horse because he is a bit nervous YOU WONT BE ABLE TO! Because why would your brain trust you the nervous nelly to take charge? It just won’t!
Enjoy the revelations !